Thank you, Chair, and I do agree with the observations made by Mr. Vincent. I believe a lot of the issues we're dealing with today go back to the fact that the primary tool that DFO used for managing the fishery over the years was controlling the size of the vessel, especially with inshore fishers. That has changed dramatically in the last number of years and it's almost as if DFO's policy has not kept up with the evolution of the industry and the fleet.
While I would agree with you that DFO must maintain control of vessel length where it involves those species that are not individually controlled, when you look....I'll focus on the lobster industry. The lobster industry is probably one of the most controlled fisheries. It's controlled within specific seasons, it's controlled by how many lobster traps the fishermen can use.
In fisheries like that, the overriding decision should be one on safety and efficiency of the fisher to make a catch. This is where DFO loses credibility in the eyes of the community, when they sometimes pay more attention to the vessel being two inches longer than it says it's supposed to be. They focus on that instead of the conservation of the resource, on which in most areas now the department is doing a very good job.
We hear Mr. McDonald point out the frustration level on two things and I'm going to ask you to comment on that. One is there appears often to be just an inordinate amount of time in dealing with the paperwork to change something and the ability.... Some of these policies seem to make no sense, other than to frustrate the fisher. When you're looking at vessel length...and we went through this in the gulf region years ago. I believe it changed in 2003 when there was a review of the inshore fishing fleet, because again, you couldn't fish in a boat of 45 feet, but you could fish in one 44 feet 11.5 inches, and you think, why?
That's the frustration level that you get from the inshore fishers who are simply looking at it for safety, for the efficiency of fishing. And the fishing gear has gotten larger, but still it's controlled within that resource.
Could you comment on what you've been doing at DFO to look at the ability of timely response to fishers when they come in because six weeks.... Often a situation will present itself to the fisher where they need an immediate answer, and it just seems to take forever to get an answer to a simple position.
I simply want to leave the one comment that of course DFO should be managing the resource, and a lot of them you're doing very well, but at the end of the day, I think you have to also look at the safety of the fisher and the efficiency of the fisher in pursuing their catch.